NASA Testing Drones to Show No Threat to Airliners

A Predator drone manufactured by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., sits on display at the Paris Air Show on June 18, 2013. Photographer: Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- The Predator drone, known for its
stealthy strikes on terrorists, will begin flight tests early
next year to prove large unmanned aircraft are safe while
operating amid commercial planes.

Researchers will be studying so-called sense-and-avoid
technology, designed to alert the drone’s remote pilot to nearby
aircraft, according to Chuck Johnson, senior adviser for
unmanned and autonomous systems at the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration.

NASA’s goal: Harvest data that will help design systems so
big drones can fly above 18,000 feet (5,500 meters), in airspace
used by airliners, cargo planes and business jets. Pilotless
aircraft could be used to haul freight or hover high in the sky
to beam Internet signals across remote terrain, Johnson said.

“You could see down the road aircraft that are very large
flying in the national airspace that are either remotely
operated or semi-autonomously operated,” Johnson said in an
interview at a conference for the Association for Unmanned
Vehicle Systems International trade group that ended yesterday
in Orlando, Florida.

Air travelers don’t need to worry about high-altitude
drones alongside any time soon. NASA’s tests are aimed at paving
the way for a future generation of pilotless aircraft, not the
current array of small, helicopter-type models able to perform
mundane chores like lofting a movie camera.

Desert Skies

NASA’s MQ-9 Predator B has a 66-foot wingspan that is
almost as broad as the 78-foot width for a G450 from General
Dynamics Corp.’s Gulfstream. Built by General Atomics
Aeronautical Systems Inc., the Predator started its military
life as a surveillance aircraft before being equipped with
missiles for ground attack.

In early 2015, high in the California desert skies above
NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, live drills will begin
with the propeller-driven Predator and two piloted aircraft that
intrude near the drone’s flight path.

To push the technology to its limits, one of the tests will
involve flying the Predator and another plane at different sites
while using live computer simulation to make it appear as if
their paths cross. That will allow researchers to create more
extreme near-misses even to the point of a virtual collision.

“The idea is to try and figure out whether or not the
algorithms that are part of the system are able to tell the
pilot when to turn in advance of something that could introduce
a safety risk,” Johnson said. “You want to test the boundaries
of that.”

FAA Rules

The first U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations
for commercial unmanned aircraft may come this year, covering
models that weigh less than 55 pounds (25 kilograms) -- a
fraction of the size of the Predator.

Small commercial drones may be limited to flying below 400
feet and within an operator’s sight. A comment period for
possible changes may run 18 months, Jim Williams, chief of the
FAA’s unmanned aircraft division, said at the conference.

An aerial close call between a small drone and an American
Airlines Group Inc. jet in March underscored the risks of having
remote-controlled vehicles in the nation’s airways. The pilot
reported the encounter while at 2,300 feet, and will be
interviewed by the FAA, Williams said.

The bigger drones envisioned by engineers actually will be
easier to integrate into the air traffic system, because they
will be fewer in number and can fitted with the same equipment
as commercial planes, said Michael Francis, who helped pioneer
unmanned aircraft during stints with the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency and now works at United Technologies
Corp.

“The current system, with some modifications, is capable
of handling them,” said Francis, chief of advanced programs at
the United Technologies Research Center, in an interview.

The U.S. military now uses unmanned helicopters to deliver
supplies to soldiers in Afghanistan, and in September the Air
Force flew an F-16 fighter jet that was converted into a drone.

NASA’s tests of the sense-and-avoid technology will
conclude in 2016, and the data will allow the FAA to create
standards for manufacturers to build the systems, the space
agency’s Johnson said. With the sensing equipment and FAA
regulations, the larger drones may be ready to fly in commercial
airspace as soon as 2018, Johnson said.

“This is about getting the rules aligned so that any
commercial entity can take advantage of them,” Johnson said.